Luka Nightingale

*An interpretation of The Snatcher

Luka is married to Mariposa, and with her takes care of six kids: Four adopted (Hattie, Bow, Drake, and Shannon) and two biological (Aurora and Kage). The Nightingales also have four pets, being a wolf (Annihilan), a flora (Buttercup), a gargoyle(?) (ZeZult), and a bushcat (Bush). Technically they have worm hydra. It's hectic at many times, but all of these people and pets in his life have given him motivation to open up and allow himself to care about people. He wouldn't have it any other way.

As for parental figures, one would be Juniper, the Shade responsible for him surviving a very dire situation. She views him as her son, but he's apprehinsive about seeing her as any mother figure. The other, Styx, is more close with him and has tried to give him advice in the past, though him closing off from everyone at that time caused them to go dormant. Thanks to the hope for Subcon brought by Hattie, Bow, and Mariposa, Styx returned to provide guidance and conversation again. They missed him.

He has one recurring family member: Moonjumper has effectively proclaimed themself as his sibling. At first he found them to be annoying, but around the time he began to get close withat Mariposa he began to accept and appreciate them.

Thanks to social anxiety, he isn't the best at making friends. This is made even more difficult when it comes to interacting with people outside of his forest. He's friends with some of Mariposa's friends by proxy, and he most notably has an ongoing rivalry/friendship with Scott. The exceptions to his social anxiety due to sheer kindness and care over his wellbeing are the Subconites, Dwellers, Fairies of Subcon, and Styx.

Luka can look either like how he does in A Hat or Time or have a humanoid form. Said form is still purple with long hair, and is very tall and thin. One may even call him a beanpole.

The Long Tangent About Luka's Genetics and Physiology

Luka started his life as a human and became a Shade, and he aided in the production of kids that showed Shade traits. He was not only physically affected by the Shade blood he drank, but so fundamentally changed that his genes/DNA sequences changed too. This could be because the blood was from a very powerful shade (Juniper). I find that exciting and a little scary because of just how darn Extreme that is. I also find it interesting that he was changed both physically (including organs I'm guessing) and genetically, but not psychologically (THE BRAIN IS AN ORGAN-), but then again Shades think and process like the majority of recognized species (which includes Humans).

AND YET.

Luka STILL requires more than what Shades do. His body cannot properly function on souls alone, and when his body does not have actual physical sustenance, it shows. Not only does it show in thinness, but the lack of sufficient nutrients also probably dampens his mood a lot, and may have been why in the game he was very focused on souls and violence, and had very little patience. His focus on souls is him still being hungry/not satisfied for long, and his mood/lack of patience is the result of being hangry. This idiot needed a bagel and some bacon for so long and he never even considered it.

What if to conserve energy, his body took on the form of a Shade to try and process the only nutrients he was getting. Although the souls alone are still not sufficient, it's easier energy-wise to function as closely to a Shade as possible. This would also justify him transitioning from the humanoid shape in the cellar to a shape typical of Shades with the kind of blood he drank, as opposed to literally any other form.

So then why the heck, when Juniper's blood Rearranged His Genetic Sequences, In Every Cell Of His Body, does he STILL have human traits and requires human food?

Juniper didn't begin her life as a Shade either. Luka drank a vial of her blood, which then went to change all of her cells too. It's sort of like-- a game of telephone but with transformation that's being run by a vial's-worth of blood. Biology and regeneration isn't perfect, and Juniper's blood already isn't "pure" Shade because of her starting out as a human, too. It's like with recessive alleles in genetics but not everyone knows about recessive genes so uh. Basically, when Juniper transformed, some of the genes in her DNA retained sequences (information) that could lead to showing Human traits (such as needing physical food and more stable temperature that isn't Very Very Cold). Due to her blood being drank by another Human, some of that information was completed by the information in Luka's own genes, leading to him having human traits while basically being a Shade.